Our vision
-Thank you to Veronika of NIKA ICONS for her artist’s rendition of our future chapel!
A Small Mountain School for the Formation of the Spiritual Intellect
our why / the need we fill
There is often a disconnect between IDEAS and DOING.
St John in the Wilderness longs to be a place where young people move from intuiting the truth to actually living the truth. This does not happen overnight. It is a journey and there are steps to be taken. It requires persistence and devotion and time spent participating and deepening into the liturgical seasons. With each passing year, students who come to our Sanctuary will have the opportunity to become more and more sanctified as they learn to see the sacred in their environment and in each other. They will begin to discover, as St John of Damascus did, that the whole Earth really is a living icon of God!
Our theology and its application to the care of God’s creation is very important business, particularly at this time in history. Our hope is that St John in the Wilderness, through the humble ascetic efforts of the souls who are drawn here, can highlight something, however small, about resilience and about the healing of our wounded creation and about the environmental responsibility of the Church.
To provide people this opportunity, our vision is: To build and sustain the life of a Byzantine Stone Chapel that anchors the activities and schooling of a small collective of Orthodox craftspersons and students as they mature in the gifts of the spiritual intellect.
Everything that lives and breathes is sacred and beautiful in the eyes of God. The whole world is a sacrament. The entire cosmos is a Burning Bush of God’s uncreated energies, and humankind stands as a priest before the altar of Creation, a microcosm and a mediator.
-Patriarch Bartholomew I
(Homily, Santa Barbara Church, CA. Nov 8, 1997.)
An altar in the wilderness
THE NEED WE FILL:
- We offer a place of spiritual formation where young people can discuss spiritual ideas and be guided within an Eastern Christian context. Natural conversation in a supported learning environment will guide us towards rightly engaging the wisdom texts and witnesses of a living Tradition.
- Because of the relatively new challenges with global warming and climate change, struggling with understanding the world and our human place in it is more crucial than ever. Any change to how we inhabit the earth will require a more intensified spiritual life that is shared in common with others.
- Participating in the liturgical life of the Eastern Orthodox tradition can help us orient our lives towards something greater, providing fulfillment far greater than material wealth can provide. As we deepen further and further into the Mysteries with each turn of the liturgical year, our desires naturally shift and the insatiable hunger and thirst that oftentimes leads to an over-consumption of resources is satiated, in Christ’s love.
DEVELOP RESILIENCY BY TAKING YOUR SPIRITUAL LIFE SERIOUSLY
Our human resilience is dependent upon the deep understanding of the sacredness of one’s life in relation to all things: our interdependence. It is crucial for each of us to remember that our lives matter and that we can each be part of the restoration of balance as we open our gaze to wonder and reclaim our everyday lives as being the very landscape where we encounter the divine.
— What if the answer to the great instability of climate change rests with us developing into our Personhood? —
Human resilience going forward is going to be a huge question. What our Orthodox faith is saying about what a human being is, is actually one of the greatest resources for human resilience we have. The most resilient thing you can do, is to actually take seriously your spiritual life, to move as best as you can towards theosis. It gives you resilience but also a lower impact on the environment.
As Orthodox we are not just leaving things in the realm of temporality. We are no longer just assuming it’s going to keep repeating. We are now engaged in transfiguration.
-Fr Nilos Nellis
our how / Putting ideas into action
BUILDING A STONE CHAPEL. A small Orthodox stone chapel with the Mystery of Christ at the centre of its daily patterns and rhythms can provide for a unity of life reflected in the diversity of the people and the beauty of the wilderness surrounding it. A Byzantine chapel that is alive with Orthodox chant and Divine Liturgy can meet the deep yearnings of those wanting to experience Truth.
We have already made some great progress on the stone chapel! See our Donate page for more details, photos and updates.
DEVELOPING RESPONSIBLE SKILLS INVOLVING CRAFT. We need to learn how to adapt to new conditions and how to develop responsible skills involving craft, choosing to maintain life without overly relying on fossil fuels. Handcraft such as wooden boat building, basket weaving, and iconography can help students integrate prayer life with embodied work and accomplishments. The experience of creating beautiful things that we can share with others is at the heart of our mission.
We are creating programming for workshops and curriculum that will be implemented in several phases.
OUTDOOR EDUCATION AND WILDERNESS SURVIVAL SKILLS.
We desire to offer people the experience of learning wilderness and survival skills in the context of the Christian understanding of the sacredness of matter. The experience of being in communion with the elements -fire, wind, water, earth – and with each other in this way can bring people more deeply into the great mystery of Life. Young people will develop the ability to see God in all things and in each other. This will support them as they head into the world on their various career paths. The re-enchantment of humanity and a rediscovery of Nature, as being revelatory and saturated with the divine, MATTERS, one person at a time.
CREATING THE INFRASTRUCTURE NECESSARY to provide for workers and hospitality and a small Centre on site where we will be able to host various institutes/ symposia. This will bring edification to our Orthodox community and in turn will benefit the wider Kootenay area as ideas filter out.
ESTABLISHING GARDENS. Gardens are an important way to not only ensure we have food to feed ourselves and to share with others, but to reconnect with our role as stewards of Creation. Permaculture gardening and living away from the electrical grid can strengthen our experience of God’s faithful provision.
GUIDING QUESTIONS
THE JOURNEY WE WANT TO TAKE PEOPLE ON INVOLVES THE DEEP CONSIDERATION OF SOME OF THESE QUESTIONS.
WE BEGIN WITH REPENTENCE:
- How do we become so ontologically changed ourselves that we stabilize rather than destabilize the earth and become a solution to climate change?
- Can our own wisdom and humble ascetic journey be integral to healing the Earth and bringing forth abundance and beauty?
- Is Creation itself yearning and groaning and waiting patiently for us to finally become human beings in the right relationship with things?
- Can we heal the Earth by healing our relationship to Christ?
Come on a journey with us
We need YOU and we are finally ready to put ourselves out there and ask for support in this way. Much progress has already been made – Glory to God! – but, realistically, implementing our vision in a timely fashion has a lot to do with finances.
Help us do this!
Our CO-CREATE page is where you can find out how to donate and you’ll also find more information about our current projects there. Please consider helping us by making a donation. All gifts are tax deductible and will be used 100% to fund St John in the Wilderness activities listed on the website. Thank you so much for your deep consideration.